the warriors and the broken
by Our Mismatched Socks
Summary: The unsung heroes, the victors trying to keep their heads above water, the murderers, all the lost souls the Capitol left in its wake. Character studies of the ones we don't talk about.
1. introduction (all of you human)

There are those of you that deserved better, and there are those of you that deserved worse.  
There are those of you that dipped your heads and wished that it would end. There are those of you that spat fire shaped like words at the Capitol, at the Games, at the whole system.  
There are those of you that smiled, those of you that waved and saw dripping blood and endless, twisting shadows when you closed your eyes.  
There are those of you that squinted into fluorescent lights, trapped your emotions so that only mirth would rise from your depths, and cheered for the favorites, for the victors, for the children.  
There are those of you that gripped sweaty, tangled sheets and tried to breathe because you can, because you made it, because you are a murderer and the cannons never stop.  
There are those of you that idly spoke of winning, of glory-  
those of you that trained so hard and could never be prepared for the real thing-  
those of you that hunched your shoulders and would not look at the projected screen-  
those of you that choked on sobs, gripped your babies' hands as you sent them to die-  
those of you that lost yourselves in drugs and alcohol, anything that might erase the stink of what you've done-  
those of you that giggled-  
your forms fluid-  
as you changed with the Capitol-  
vomit dripping from your mouths  
as you gorged yourselves-  
and whispered "Long live the Capitol"  
and raised your fizzing glass towards the sky.  
There are those of you that are angels-  
and demons-  
and broken beyond recognition.  
And there are those of you that are human-  
and you are the most dangerous of them all.


	2. thresh (things they took from you)

Looking down at the mutts from a twisted tree branch, he decides that, in retrospect, his life meant very little to anyone, even him.

This is an awful realization, to be sure, but he feels strangely calm. He knew from the moment his name was drawn at the Reaping that he was going to die. He never once felt like he could win, because he was too kind. Now, he isn't so sure about that.

Yeah, okay, if he'd killed Katniss when he'd had the chance, he could've been closer to winning, but he still wouldn't have won. Nobody cares about "close to winning." They want a victor. They want someone they can shove up onto a pedestal and parade around. They probably don't want him, anyway. Even if he wins, he feels like he's probably incapable of smiling and waving to the crowd at this point.

He isn't kind anymore. Maybe he wasn't in the first place. His grandma had said that he was, right after the Reaping, when he was wrapped tight in her arms. "You're too kind, Thresh," she'd said. "Don't let them take that from you."

"I'm sorry, Grandma," he whispers, the failure heavy on his chest. He can still hear the sickening snap of the District Two girl's neck. He can still see the blood that painted the ground back at the Cornucopia, when he had become a murderer in the first five minutes.

"I'm sorry, Liss," he adds. He doesn't think that the cameras are on him- Katniss and Peeta are much more interesting, anyone would agree, and he'd previously been just fine with remaining largely out of the public eye. Now, however, he wanted his family to hear his apologies. He didn't want them to see him die, but he wanted them to know that he was sorry, and that he loved them.

"Come home, Thresh," his sister had whispered into his shirt, near the damp spots that she had made. Not "win." He'd thought about that a lot.

He supposes that he has the same problem that she does. He wants to go home, more than anything in the world, but he hates the thought of being a victor.

The snarls are growing louder. He risks a glance down, and regrets it.

Even the ones who died before the Games could change them so much aren't human anymore, and this is so ironic that his mouth turns upward into a grim little smile.

Rue- no, not Rue, a twisted, Capitol-made remnant of Rue- isn't there, thank God. He doesn't think that he could handle that.

The mutt at the front has the hungry blue eyes of Clove. They are unmistakable, because he hasn't been able to forget how panicked they were as his hands closed around her throat.

He won't apologize to her.

"An eye for an eye," he whispers to the canopy of trees up above. "Now, we're even."

When he closes his eyes, he sees rippling fields of golden wheat. Liss with ribbons in her hair. Rue smiling brightly at him, like she's chosen to ignore the fact that they are both going to die.

He opens his eyes. The heavy panting of the mutts, just biding their time, greets him.

An eye for an eye. A monster thrown to the monsters.

He jumps.


	3. johanna (try to get away)

The blood falls, stinging her skin and seeping into the ground, and all she can think is that she deserves it.

She doesn't normally think this kind of thing. She's more of a "moving forward" kind of person, focusing on the name she's made for herself more than how she made it. The past is in the past. She did what she needed to, and now she's alive and she owes that to the people she killed.

The Capitol didn't like it, of course. Nobody was rooting for the timid girl from Seven that seemed to be crying constantly. And then, of course, she'd done that distasteful thing that people wrinkled their noses at, but she doesn't care. Yeah, sometimes at night she drinks cup after cup of water, desperate to flush the taste of human skin from her mouth, but it's not like they felt anything. They were already dead, and if the Capitol didn't like it, tough. They should've put more food in the Arena. She didn't have any sponsors, and she'd had to be resourceful.

Now, the word "murderer" pounds through her head, and there's so much blood, covering everything in a sticky, horrifying sheen of red, one that is all too familiar to her, and she runs, arms folded over her head.

And _of course_ her allies are Nuts and Volts. The universe likes screwing her over too much to back her into a corner with someone actually helpful. Nuts is frantically whispering some phrase over and over again, and Volts is trying to comfort her, and they run like animals from the acidic reminders of what they've done.

"I'm sorry!" Johanna screams to the sky. She doesn't know what she's trying to accomplish, but she's desperate and cowardly and human leg tasted scarily good to a starving girl.

"I'm sorry!" Her voice is hoarse now, and the blood drips from the trees.

She can't see anything through all the red, and she's stumbling around. She's never felt so disgusting, so inhuman as she does now.

She trips on a particularly large rock, and she falls and rolls, and she ends up in a tight ball with her eyes screwed shut, because maybe she can pretend that it's just regular rain, hot and sticky and everywhere.

"Come on!" Volts yells. "I think it's letting up!"

It's not, of course it's not. There's no end in sight. It's just rain, she likes rain, she ran through it as a little girl, maybe there are puddles that she can jump in.

Someone grips her elbow firmly and pulls her up. She teeters on her feet, trying to regain her balance, and keeps her eyes closed.

"Rain, rain, go away, come again another day. . ." Nuts is singing, and that's possibly the only thing that's okay about this situation. Nuts is singing in a dreamy voice, which means that everything is normal.

She grits her teeth. This won't kill her. She just needs to get through it, and it'll be over. It has to be over eventually.

"Come on!" Volts sounds more insistent now.

"It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring. . ."

Johanna runs. She runs like her life depends on it, refusing to open her eyes, tripping every few feet. Volts still has his hand on her elbow, and she would shake it off but for some reason she doesn't.

 _Caesar sounded doubtful, like he didn't really know how to spin her in a positive light._

"It won't rain forever. That would make for terrible viewing." Volts sounds very certain. She doesn't know how he can be.

" _So, Miss Mason, anything you'd like to say to the audience?"_

"He went to bed and bumped his head. . ."

 _She sniffled. "I don't want to be a murderer!" She started sobbing. Day three since her reaping, and she'd gotten really good at fake sobbing._

". . . and didn't get up in the morning!"

 _The reaction was immediate. The audience booed, he mentor looked exhausted, and Caesar smiled nervously, as if uncertain how the rest of the interview should go. In the end, he waited a few minutes to see if she would collect herself, and when she didn't he personally escorted her off the stage._

"There!"

At Volts' shout, she opens her eyes again and regrets it. Forcing the blood into the back of her mind, she squints through the haze of red and sees nothing.

"I don't see anything!"

 _She was pleased, at the Quarter Quell, to finally have an interview in which she could show her true feelings. People weren't very happy with that, either, but she'd long grown used to the fact that she would never be a favored victor._

Her foot wedges itself under a root, and she falls again, this time bringing Nuts and Volts down with her.

And it stops. At first, she doesn't dare believe it, but Volts lets out a whoop, and Nuts gives a dazed smile and whispers, "Finally," and Johanna sinks to her knees, scrubbing her cheeks with both fists.

The blood doesn't come off, but then again, it never does.


	4. mrs everdeen (don't go)

**(Dedicated to Insert a Catchy Penname Here. Thanks for your kind words and your suggestions. All the rest of you, go read her stuff. You won't regret it.)**

The word _stay_ echoes through her head. With every cannon, every near-death situation that she is forced to watch her daughter try to wriggle out of, she must remind herself to stay, and it's just about the hardest thing she's ever done.

Prim whimpers, jolting her a little closer to reality. Katniss looks beautiful, and for some reason that is all that she can focus on. Katniss looks beautiful and grown-up, and they let her keep the braid. Mrs. Everdeen is glad that they let Katniss keep the braid. It's maybe their only, fragile connection in the terrifying world that her baby has been launched into.

She can't look at the tree. She can't look at the Careers, laughing because it really is just a game to them, clustered around and waiting. She definitely can't look at Peeta, because she used to see him every day in the Hob and he was always such a nice boy. He was sweet and hard-working, and when he'd said in the interview that he loved Katniss she'd almost believed him. Now, he is the predator, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. The Games have turned a boy into a killer, just like they always do.

Instead, she focuses on the branches, because the branches aren't trying to kill her daughter. The branches are safe, almost inviting.

This is why she sees the giant, papery cocoon before Katniss does, and she moans a little.

"Momma?" Prim asks in her little quavery voice.

She can't tell Prim. Prim's still a baby, with scared eyes and hunched shoulders, trying to stay brave because that's what the world wants her to do.

Katniss is still a baby too. They're all babies. The ones with hungry, murderous glints in their eyes, the ones that have learned to walk silently, the ones that huddle close to fires and welcome death's cool touch. What's the Capitol doing, making babies kill each other?

"It'll be okay," she lies, folding her hands over each other so they'll stop shaking. "They'll fall asleep eventually, love."

She doesn't know which love she's talking to. Prim burrows into her side, and if her shirt grows wetter, she doesn't mention it.

The camera switches. It was only a matter of time, really. The Capitol is bored with the waiting game, and is searching for action, but there isn't much to be found. The strong boy from District Eleven is hiding in the tall grass as always, and he's just opening a sponsor gift. The camera zooms in on a small package of dried meats. She wonders briefly about the boy's family, before locking the thought away.

The Capitol selects the District Eleven girl, who at least is moving. She zips from tree to tree with ease, and Mrs. Everdeen has to look away. Babies, so many babies . . .

The girl lands silently on a steady branch and crouches, watching something. The camera follows her gaze and Mrs. Everdeen chokes. Of course, they're back to Katniss and the Careers.

The suspense is heavy in the air, and she can barely stand it. Prim leans forward, pale and wide-eyed.

Suddenly, Mrs. Everdeen hopes that Katniss' death is uninteresting and anticlimactic. She hates herself for thinking it. Katniss won't die; Katniss is strong and resourceful and has good aim. There won't be a cannon for Katniss.

But if she does die, if there is a cannon that reverberates around the arena, Mrs. Everdeen hopes that they won't be forced to watch it. She hopes that Prim won't be forced to keep her eyes on the screen as her sister's death is broadcasted for entertainment all around Panem.

She would rather be left wondering than with nightmares dripping with blood. She thinks that anyone would, no matter how terrible her imagination can get at times.

Prim gasps, and Mrs. Everdeen closes her eyes. Prim saw. Prim knows.

"Momma." Prim tugs at her sleeve. "There are tracker-jackers!"

She has never been able to keep her babies safe, she think as she pulls Prim closer, but she'll be damned if she isn't going to try.


	5. foxface (quiet victory)

She knew that the Nightlock berries would kill her.

She was an expert when it came to nature, and so far, surviving had been a breeze.

But Katniss Everdeen had to win.

Not because Foxface felt she deserved it, or pitied her in any way, but because she had a certain type of bravery that she knew the Capitol had never laid eyes on before, because she knew Katniss had the potential to make a change.

Foxface had come to win, but now victory seemed irrelevant.

The berries had started to leave dark stains on her small, freckled hands. Her knives hadn't yet been contaminated with the blood of another tribute, but she imagined this is what blood would look like. It suddenly occurred to her that what she was about to do could be considered murder, and tears flooded her eyes.

Her arm refused to move now, and looking down, the purple berries felt a mile away. She had always loved the color purple.

A sudden surge of strength brought her hand up to her lips, and the flavor hit the moment the tiny orbs hit her tongue.

At first it was sour, but it became sweet within milliseconds. Strangely, it reminded Foxface of strawberry lemonade. She figured strawberry lemonade was an okay way to die.


	6. delly (as the world destroys itself)

Once upon a time, there was an easily-understood world, and a girl who knew her place in it.

Once upon a time, there was death and bloodshed, but there was also a bakery with pretty flowered cakes and kind, grubby-faced people, and a man that swung the girl 'round when he returned from the mines every day.

Once upon a time there was a home.

Now there is a battlefield.

If she's being honest with herself, Delly doesn't know why Gale saved her, although she thinks that it's simply because he could. She is no help to the revolution that they are planning, and she just feels lost, here.

A little more time, just a little, and she could have run home, bare feet slapping against the dirt, and warned her papa and baby brother, and then maybe she would have felt more like she deserved to make it out when so many others didn't.

She curls up on her bed and screws her eyes shut. In her head, a volley of bombs slam to earth, their explosions a distant rhythm. The man that she talked to in the obligatory therapy session said that she would get used to it, eventually.

She forgets, sometimes, that these grim-faced, no-nonsense people were probably a little like her. The bombs came, and they twisted everything to the point of unrecognizability, and they left hardened people made of stone that learned to adapt.

She doesn't want to be like them, rationing food and living by the schedule pressed into her arm. She remembers the advice her papa gave her, on reaping days when it seemed so much like she was going off to die.

 _Survive first,_ he'd said, gripping her shoulders, face more serious than she'd ever seen. _Live later._

She'd never been reaped, of course, and she couldn't begin to imagine the horrors of the arena. She wouldn't have won, though, and she knows that for certain. There is nothing particularly special about her. She would never have gotten sponsors.

However, she remembers the advice, and likely always will. It's good advice, and it's what's keeping her sane at the moment. Get through each day, do what's needed of you, and maybe later there will be something worth truly living for.

She can't help but think, though, that in seventy-five years the people of District Thirteen have not yet progressed past survival. It's a depressing thought, and she rolls over, swinging her legs off the side of her bed. She needs something to do, something to take her mind off of this. She knows that the only way to even remotely handle the whole situation is not to think about it.

She slips out into the hall. It's empty, given that everybody else is doing exactly what they're supposed to do, most of which doesn't involve going through hallways. She can't tell if she appreciates the solitude or not.

She slumps against the wall, sliding down to the floor. She doesn't know how much longer she can take this, waiting for the war to be won, for things to get better. She doesn't know how she manages, how she can even function without her family.

She doesn't know who she is anymore. She doesn't know if she has an identity here, with her district and her family torn away from her.

She isn't clever. She trips over words, fumbles with ideas, floats around without a purpose.

She isn't a revolutionary. She's just a girl, except even that can't really be said anymore.

"I'm sorry, Papa," she whispers to the gray, gray ceiling. "I'm trying so hard."

She stands up and starts walking in long strides to the mess hall for 19:00: Dinner.

She can't live, but that's okay, because living isn't the most important thing right now.

All she has to do is survive.


	7. leeg one (ashes, ashes)

Her name was Hanna.

That seemed to be the most important thing, but she could count on one hand how many people knew it. Those that did were people she didn't want to associate with anymore, and District Thirteen had been all too happy to oblige.

Like so many, she and Elois had escaped from the Capitol, and District Thirteen preferred to erase old identities, identities stained with drunken laughter and sharp fingernails digging into porcelain skin.

She hadn't minded the Capitol, really. She tolerated a lot of people. Did what they told her to, their good little girl, raising her glass in toast to the beautiful people who sent children to their deaths. She was obedient, forever obedient, and next to brave, wild Elois, that seemed like a curse.

They'd left for a lot of reasons, really. It seemed useless to name them all.

They'd left because Elois couldn't forget the feeling of bony fingers wrapped around her wrist, a soothing voice telling her to relax, stay calm and quiet like the drugs should have made her. They'd left because an Avox had broken a vase, some dumb thing Hanna had made when she tried on hobbies like clothes, slipped on and off again until soiled, and their mother had killed him for it. They'd left because a twelve-year-old girl died with a blank stare and a gaping hole through her chest, and neither of them could forget her haunting eyes.

They'd left because Hanna was good with technology and science, often dismissed as useless skills in the Capitol, and they wanted her as a Gamemaker next year, wanted her to devise new tortures for little kids.

They'd left and they'd gone to District Thirteen. They accepted the new cultures without complaint, rationed their food and lived without luxury, eyes wide with excitement at the process of doing something, bringing the toxic city they'd been trained to love to its knees.

Now, they're Leeg 1 and Leeg 2. They joked about it, at first. Elois teased that Hanna should savor this occasion of being first, since she was always second in other things, second to the sister born fifteen minutes before her.

Now, they crouch in a house, covered in shiny, glossy beauty to hide how it's crumbling, painted over so many times and decked with trendy furniture to cover chipped tiles, and if that doesn't sum up the Capitol, nothing does.

Elois is in a lot of pain.

It's not often that she shows weakness to her baby sister, and Hanna can't help but remember the last time, remember Elois's desperate face, streaked with tears, her stumbly, doped-up walk.

"It's okay," Hanna says quietly. Explosions outside. Shrapnel flies past the window. It's all faded into the background, white noise, leaving nothing but Hanna and Elois, just like it always was, in a pretty, glossy Capitol house.

It's funny, almost, how hard they fought to get away from it all. Maybe Snow's right. You can never really leave the Capitol. It follows you until you're about to die, and you don't even get the comfort of being somewhere other than the place you hate more than anything.

Elois laughs. It's a strange sound, bitter. Elois was never bitter. "Baby sister," she says, and Hanna lets her, just this once. "I thought we agreed never to lie to each other."

Hanna swallows hard. "Sorry," she mumbles, forever the obedient girl, keeping her head down.

Elois catches her chin, pulling it up. Forcing her to meet her eyes, and blue stares into blue for one unflinching moment.

"Remember," Elois says. "We escaped, at least for a little while."

Hanna doesn't want to look away. She's entranced, like so many others have been, caught by her sister's steady gaze.

"We did," she says. "We'll go down fighting them."

"Yeah," Elois says. "Sounds nice and heroic, right?"

No, Hanna wants to say. Heroic isn't this, dying crouched in the corner of a house they could never truly leave. Heroic is the people who went ahead, Katniss and Peeta, Finnick and Boggs, the camera crew. Heroic is District children, placing flowers on their so-called enemies' eyes, heroic is the citizens of Thirteen, not quite wiped out, built up from the ashes.

Heroic isn't two Capitol girls who decided to leave the endless blur of parties and laughter.

"Can I tell you a secret?" Elois whispers. The sounds grow louder. The sounds of fighting. Of a revolution.

"Always," Hanna says automatically. There has never been a secret kept between the two of them, at least she doesn't want to think there was.

"I don't want to die," Elois says, and her lips are cracked and her voice is soft and her leg is twisted at an awful, awful angle. She is no longer brave, wild big sister. She repeats it, sounding more urgent this time. "I don't want to die."

Isn't it funny? Capitol girls, paraded around all their lives, running away and painting themselves heroes and preaching the art of sacrifice. Of course these strong, brave girls will die. They will sacrifice themselves.

Except they didn't, not really. They stayed behind, stayed together, because it's all they know how to do.

Hanna opens her mouth to respond. Say something, anything. Comfort Elois, say she doesn't want to die either, perhaps lie again and say they won't. She reaches out, perhaps to take Elois's hand, perhaps for her sister's sake, perhaps for her own. Perhaps formulate a plan, perhaps break out of there with Elois on her back, suck in fresh air by the lungful.

The world won't ever know, but that's okay, because the world won't ever ask.

The explosion throws the world off-focus, slams prized furniture and antiques against the wall. They're dead before the blast even hits them, really, two brave, heroic Capitol girls who, selfishly, did not want to die.


	8. leeg two (we all fall down)

painpainpainpainpainpainpain

pain(don'tcrysister)pain(don'tliesister)pain

wet cheeks

dirty wet (iwishicouldprotectyou)

pain

pain

pain

heat(together,likewealwaysplanned)

raining pieces

old buildings

treasured memories

scorch the glass

pain

pain(wanttohearasecret,sister?)painpain

pain

white-hot

dust

can't breathe

can't breathe

can't breathe

could never breathe

pain

fire

useless leg

(leaveme,sister)

useless fear

(stayhere,sister)

(saveyourself)

pain

twisting

gripping

(i'msorryi'msorryi'msorryi'msorryi'msorryi'm)

don't you see, caesar?

don't you see that the games cannot end

without casualties?

(notyou,notmysister,go)

interesting development, caesar

(go,go,go,go)

the ones favored to win

(beautifulgirlscapitolgirls)

the tables have been turned, caesar

(don'tleaveyourglassintheopen)

the hunters,

sharp-toothed,

betting on the winners,

the losers,

the dead,

lives no more than money in our hands

(comeonbabyyouknowyouwantit)

all bets are off, caesar

in the seventysixth

all bets are off

(runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun)

the favored girls

are dying

now who will win?

does anybody care?

where is our cannon, caesar?

(youcanstillgoyoucanstillleave)

when will our faces be splayed across the sky?

(you'regoingtodiewe'rebothgoingtodie)

eternal

immortal

not for long, caesar

heat

pain

whitehot

twisting

noise

(gogogogogogogogogogogogo)

loud

(leavemeleavemeleavemeleaveme)

screeching

(there'sstilltime,there'sstilltimeforyou)

nothing

interesting development, folks

very interesting indeed

now who will win?

who will be the victor of the seventy-sixth games?

two

less

opponents

so many interesting developments


End file.
